


Puppeteer

by Corvid_Knight



Series: Demonstuck [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: BIG OOF, Demonstuck, Gen, Guns, Possesion, Suicide mention, fucked-up situation, minor injury, tell me if there's a tag i need to add
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 20:19:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15670566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: Something is very wrong with D, and Dirk's the only one home to experience it.





	Puppeteer

"So if you had to pick," D says, tilting his head with a movement that even your ten-year-old self can easily classify as _unnatural,_ "would you go with the knife, or the gun?" 

You blink and shrug, and look down at the weapons in question. They're only two of the ten or so potentially deadly objects your big bro's laid out on the coffee table; the rest of it's been impatiently swept to one side, broken glass and rope and blades jumbled up in a pile that's being ignored in favor of the blade and the revolver. 

"I don't wanna pick." The words slip out of your mouth before you think, and you bite down on your lip in an attempt to call them back. It doesn't work, of course. "D—" 

"Nah, Dirk, you can't wuss out that easy, c'mon." He grins ( _too wide_ ) and reaches down to scoop up the knife in one hand and the gun in the other ( _movements too jerky, not quite right, not quite_ him), cocking his head sharply again. "Knife. Or gun?" 

Shit. _Shit._ You can't opt out of this game.

Maybe you can stall. Maybe. 

"For me, or for you?" you ask him, because it's the first thing that pops into your head, a desire to clarify the rules because if you know what they are maybe you can slide around them, dodge and slip through and make him recast the net he's trying to catch you in, give you time to figure out how to fix whatever's wrong. 

You don't know what you're thinking. You can't fix this. You probably can't _survive_ this. 

Still gotta try. Striders don't die easy, that's what Bro always says. 

D's grin faltered a little when you asked him who this choice of weapons was for, but it's already in place on his face again, bright and cheery and really, really scary. You don't know how he can talk and smile like that at the same time. 

"For you, kiddo. This is all about you, y'know?" See, that's almost believable as him being normal, but his next words ruin that impression. "I already told you how I'd kill myself—or like, gave you some possible scenarios, right? It's your turn. Knife or gun?" 

He's holding both of them. Even if he wasn't, even if you could get ahold of one, what do you think you're going to do? That's your big _bro_. He teaches you how to fight, brings you back little kits to build things and sits down to help you when you need it, picks you up and cuddles you when you can't sleep (instead of telling you to quit being a baby, like Bro does), buys your favorite soda even when he has to go to five different stores to find the one that has it this week. D's your _brother._ You can't hurt him. 

_D won't hurt me, either. This is just a game...I just need to play his game..._

The problem is, you don't want to die by either of the weapons in your big brother's hands. But you have to choose one. _Not_ choosing one is not an option. 

"Gun." Mostly because the thought of pressing the knife up against your arm, watching the skin split and flesh part and blood first ooze then _gush_ out...that makes you feel sick to your stomach, almost dizzy. That kind of sick can only lead to you passing out, and if you do that...

You don't think you'd wake up again, if you did that. Not ever. 

_D won't hurt me!_ you tell yourself, and then you have to admit, reluctantly... _that might not be D._

Not that you have a real idea on what he is. It is. If you think of the man sitting across from you as _it_ , maybe you can stay calm and keep your guard up. You can do that. You _have_ to do that. 

"Damn, man. You'd eat a bullet?" D frowns, spinning the gun around on his finger exactly like he's told you not to _ever_ do so many times that you can't remember, flipping the knife in his other hand with a disconnected ease that vaguely horrifies you. "Really? Y'know that's supposed to be the coward's way out, right?" 

"I thought suicide was the coward's way out. In general." Maybe that's how you can worm your way out of this situation. Just...get into a debate with him. Distract him—

D huffs—you feel like he's rolling his eyes behind his shades—and snaps his wrist out, towards you. For an instant you're sure he'll hit you, pistol-whip you like Bro's threatened to do to the grown-ups he has to hunt with sometimes, and you can't help but flinch. Just a little. 

He doesn't touch you, though. But the barrel of the gun is levelled maybe four inches from your forehead, steady and unwavering. 

_No. Please._ "D..." 

"Hey, you picked the gun. Live by steel, die by lead, right? That's what you want?" He's smiling, but there's something different in the set of his shoulders. God, you wish you could see his eyes. "Go out with a _bang_ , kiddo?" 

_Bang_ is almost shouted, and you really flinch worse this time. While you're still trying to steady yourself, D leans forward, the gun leading the way until cold steel just barely kisses your forehead. 

You don't dare breathe. 

"Take it," he says. _It_ says. It isn't D, can't be, even if it's your bro it _isn't._ "Take it, Dirk." 

You bite down on your tongue—not your lip, he'd see if you bit your lip, he'd see how scared you are and that's what he wants, what you don't dare give him—and reach up to wrap both hands around the grip, keeping your fingers outside the trigger guard. 

(Like he taught you.) 

He's still holding it, though, and when he takes his hands away you realize that you're barely supporting it at all; the gun almost slips out of your hands. You gasp and frantically fumble with it, D laughs, and when you get a better grip on it and go to lower it to your lap he grabs the barrel, forcing it back up towards your face. 

"You know how to do it, right?" 

"Yeah, but—I can't—D—" 

"Show me." 

"But—" 

" _Show me_." 

The command is rough, sharp, totally anathemic to any argument. Bro might keep arguing anyway, but...you're not Bro. Not even close. 

You blink, try to keep the tears off your face, swallow hard, and raise the gun to point at your temple. Metal presses against your skin, a hard little circle that's way too small to be able to do what you know it can, and when you blink again you feel something hot and wet trickle down your face. 

D either doesn't notice that you're crying now, or he doesn't care. He just rubs his mouth thoughtfully, watching you for a moment. 

Then, "...damn, kid. Coulda just said you didn't know how to do it." 

You want to really start crying. _Why won't he just get bored of me?_

"In your mouth, Dirk. Look. Look at me." Like you've looked anywhere else, this whole time. He points with his index and middle finger, the others folded behind to give an approximation of a gun, opens his mouth and puts them just a little way inside. 

"D—" 

"Do it." 

You swallow hard. Then you mimic him, still keeping your finger off the trigger. Even breathing through your nose and letting as little of your mouth as possible touch the metal, you taste it—metal and oil, familiar and yet terrifying in the context you've been forced into. 

D's hand lowers back to the coffee table, but he doesn't put the smile back on his face. Just...sits there, blank, head slightly to one side, like he's waiting for input. For someone to pull his strings. 

It's scary. D doesn't sit still like this, not when he's awake and often not even in sleep; this is one more sign that the person in front of you isn't D. Some part of you is relieved that he seems to have gone into vaporlock, though; as long as he's like this, he's not escalating the situation any further. 

Problem is, you can't sit still for very long either. Especially not when you're this keyed-up, this terrified, this stressed. You don't really have any way to judge time, but it can't be more than a couple minutes before your brain decides that you've been sitting still near danger for too long, and gives your body the signal to do _something._

_Something_ is, in this case, gasping in a deeper breath around the gun in your mouth, and starting to tremble.

The sound, is seems, is enough to reanimate D. _Fuck._

He twitches a bit, hands opening and closing where they're lying limp in his lap, and grins wide again. "Dirk." 

You don't want to try to speak around the metal in your mouth, but you _know_ he doesn't want you to take it out. The only options left to you are to try to speak around the gun (no thanks) or to just stay as still as you can and wait. 

You opt for the second choice. Maybe he'll freeze up again. 

If only you were that lucky. D twitches slightly, shakes his head a bit, and says, too fucking calmly, "Well, what're you waiting for? Pull the trigger." 

You—

_No._

"You gonna make _me_ do it for you, Dirk?" 

And he would, wouldn't he? Or _it_ would. And it'd hurt you worse than eating a bullet possibly could, you _know_ that without having to be told. You weren't wrong when you thought that this was a game, before; the only things you were wrong about was your assumption that this was your brother's game, and that you were a player. 

_Player_ is the wrong word. You're his _toy._

And there's really only one way this is going to end. 

You whimper softly enough that it might not quite hear you, and squeeze the trigger. 

_Click._

D laughs again, a short sharp sound that your overstressed mind tries to take as a threat. Before you can let the gun slip through your fingers, he's snatched it away from you, spinning it through a few revolutions before pointing it at the ceiling, playing with the safety with his other hand. 

"Lucky kid, huh? C'mon, Dirk, I'm not gonna be done with this so easy, you oughta know that." Safety on, safety off, with a little clicking sound. "And really, what kind of an idiot gives a kid a gun with a bullet in the chamber? I'm a smart guy, I have enough sense to make sure the first shot ain't gonna do a thing." 

Tiny _click_ , safety off, and he points the gun at you again. 

"Second shot, though?" 

It's not a _bang._ You don't have a nice neat onomatopoeia for the sound a gun makes when it's eighteen inches away from your face. _Loud_ is not emphatic enough; you're instantly deaf, ears ringing, blind by the virtue of having closed your eyes, pain searing up your arm—,

_Why my arm?_ you think, as you instinctively grab at that pain with your free hand and try not to recoil from the wet heat there. _Why doesn't it just—_

Even as close to deafened as you are right this second, you very faintly hear something _crash_. Whatever it is doesn't have any physical impact on you (for some reason) but it's still enough to force you to open your eyes. 

... _oh._

Bro's back, from wherever he was. You're not sure what he just did, but there's the broken remains of what looks like one of the kitchen chairs scattered across half the room, and D's half-off the couch, blood streaming down his face as Bro utilizes the length of rope D pulled out from the closet to bind his wrists together, fast and rough and efficient. 

Okay, you've been doing your absolute best to keep your composure so far, but for some reason this fucking breaks you. As in, you gasp in a breath that actually kind of hurts, and frantically try to scramble away from Bro and D, over the side of the chair and straight onto the floor since your free hand's still occupied with clutching at your bleeding arm. 

You hit your head. It hurts, bad enough that you want to just go limp and stop trying to get out of this nightmare. And even though it's not the Strider thing to do, you're about ten seconds from giving up anyway. 

Before you get to that point, Roxanne's right in front of you. She drags you up off the floor, shushing you impatiently when you try to pull back so you don't get her dress bloody and lifting you right off your feet to carry you out of the room. 

For reasons you don't quite get—loyalty to D? Maybe; you don't want to leave him in here even if it's not totally him—you struggle to fight her for a minute. Actually, right up to the point where she unceremoniously dumps you in the hall, at Roxy's feet, and disappears back into the living room. 

The door slams behind Roxanne, and you curl up on the floor as Roxy yelps in alarm and drops to her knees to try to figure out why you've got blood all over your arm. Yes, you should probably address that. No, you're not going to. 

You're going to take a quick break from reality right this second. And who the hell could really blame you?

* * *

The main reason that you don't just stay in a tense, shocked ball for the foreseeable future is very simple: Dave is here.

Now, you love Roxy, she might as well be your sister, but Dave...he's got an instinct for what you need. Always has. And right now he pushes Roxy away from you, hunkering down until he can see your face. 

"Dirk." Red eyes fix on yours, blink as he inches a bit closer. "You're bleeding?" 

The fact that it sounds like a question does not necessarily mean it is. Since right before his eighth birthday, Dave's had some weird intonation issues. D says he'll get over it, but it drives Bro absolutely batshit, with the result that as far as you can tell Dave just doesn't talk at all when Bro's around. 

"Dirk, you're _bleeding,_ " your little bro says again, pushing gently at your shoulder to try to get you to roll over so Roxy can check out your arm. "What happened. What happened?" 

Okay, so maybe you should do what he wants you to do.

You shift a little, wiping your uninjured hand off on your shirt the best you can and reaching out for Dave as you roll to let Roxy get at your other arm. He takes it without hesitation, grabbing on and squeezing despite the fact that you _still_ have blood streaked on your skin. 

The solemn look on his face doesn't falter, though. You know him well enough to know that that means _worry._

You can _not_ handle all of this right now. Especially not with Roxy probing gently at your arm. Still, you should say something to reassure him. 

"Ow." 

"Sorry!" Roxy winces, patting at your shoulder with the hand that's not wiping blood off your arm. "Sorry, sorry, sorry-sorry-sorry but he's right, y'know, you're bleeding. Like, not super bad but it's still a thing that's going on? What—" 

"—happened?" Dave finishes, squeezing your hand. 

Okay. Okay. Just talk to them. You can handle this. 

"D shot me," you blurt out, and immediately lose the ability to speak at all as your throat just kind of...seizes up. It feels like there's something in there, a knot of fear and confusion made solid and tangible, and you're choking on it. 

You almost can't breathe. You can't handle Roxy's cautious touches to your arm, you can't handle the pressure of Dave's hand around yours, you can't handle _any_ of this. Roxy says something, Dave says something, but you don't process any of it as you curl back into a ball, pressing your face against your sleeve. 

_D. What are they going to do to D?_

Dave's smaller hands are on your head, tangling up in your hair and not-quite pulling. He's not really trying to move you, just...holding. Letting you know he's here. 

The slight tug at your scalp is enough to ground yourself on, eventually. Dave's the only reason you don't stay shut down. Again. 

" 's a demon," you force out, not relaxing or opening your eyes. "Or—or something. Demon or something. In D. Under his skin, like, like—" 

"Possesion," Dave says, not even faltering on the pronunciation, and Roxy makes a disgruntled sound at losing the opportunity to show off the knowledge that comes with being a twelve-year-old hunter's kid. Dave almost instantly gives her another opening, though, with a very soft, "...what's possession?" 

"It's like, when a demon doesn't have a body so it takes somebody else's." Roxy touches your arm again, staying clear of the graze this time. "Dirky, did he do anything else to you? Like, you're not possessed too, right?" 

God, you hope not. "Mmnnm." Yes, because vague unintelligible sounds are exactly what she wants as an answer. 

"Is that a yeah or a nah? Uh—shit, how do you tell...lemme see your eyes—" 

Dave makes an impatient sound, and one of his hands leaves your hair, presumably to swat at Roxy. "He's not _possessed_!" 

"But if—" 

"No! Shut up! Dirk's _Dirk,_ dummy!" 

That outburst must surprise her, because she does, in fact, shut up. For a second. Then, "Can you just look at me for a second?" 

You can do that. Probably. 

You force yourself to relax a little bit, tilt your head back and open your eyes. Just for a second. 

It's enough for Roxy, though; her relieved sigh is clearly audible. As is Dave's huff, as he lets go of your hair and settles down on the floor next to you, nestling close enough that you can feel his heartbeat through his contact with your chest. 

It's slower than yours. He's not as upset. 

"You guys can't stay down there on the floor," Roxy points out. 

(Which is reasonable. You're still not going to move. Can't. No. Nope. Can't do it.) 

"We can stay if you get blankets," Dave says. You have no idea what the logic there is. "Please?" 

For a moment Roxy is completely silent. 

Then she sighs, and you hear footsteps retreating. It seems like not-very-long before she comes back, but that could be because you're stressed enough to have a warped sense of time. 

"Pick up your head, Dirk." 

When you do, she pushes a pillow under it, and something big and soft settles down over you and Dave both. While you're still trying to decide which blanket it is based on touch alone, Roxy squirms under it behind you, avoiding your hurt arm as she wraps her arms around your shoulders. 

You're still worried about D, but...with the two of them here, you can keep from panicking quite so much. You can wait.

* * *

You guess you fall asleep.

* * *

It feels like a lot later, when gentle (if not-quite-steady) hands on your face wake you out of a dream of blades and gunmetal. You jerk awake, grabbing for whoever's touching you even before you open your eyes. 

When you do open them, D's staring down at you. 

His shades are gone. You're _so_ glad they're gone, right now; maybe Bro broke them on accident, maybe he just left them in the other room, but what matters is that you can see his dark red eyes. You can see that it's _him,_ it's not something else wearing his skin, he's not going to ask you to—

" _Dirk_ ," your big bro chokes out, and you realize that the eyes you're staring up into are full of tears. 

Come to think of it, yours are too. 

You push yourself up off the floor and reach up for him like you're six years old, a little kid begging for affection, and D immediately obliges. He scoops you up in his arms—almost toppling backward with the shift of balance—and hugs you up to his chest, burying his face in your hair. 

He's shaking. After a second, you realize that's because he's sobbing, with muffled words mixed up in it. You can only catch a couple—mostly _I'm sorry_ and _thank fuck_. 

Oh, you hope he doesn't want an answer to any of that, because right now you can't give him one. Right now, you can only cling to your big bro, go limp in the safety of his arms, and cry into his shirt with pure painful relief that he's come back to you.


End file.
